The New Retail Thread

JohnAKeith said:
What do you think of putting another Super-Walgreens in the Tower Records building at 360 Newbury? Square footage would be more or less? Could they sub-divide? Is there enough demand (esp. with the new buildings EVENTUALLY going up on Parcels 12-15)? Would neighbors hate it any more than what was there before?
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Sounds like a great idea and use for that space!
 
It would especially be a good idea if they had an entrance for the store open right into the Hynes Convention "T" station. I.e. no need to walk outside from the station/store.
 
dshoost88 said:
It would especially be a good idea if they had an entrance for the store open right into the Hynes Convention "T" station. I.e. no need to walk outside from the station/store.
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Very doable even with the way the station is currently designed. All they need to do is knock out that wall next to the handicap ramp. If they did that and had the station open into the store, it would be soooooooo Euro-fab!!
 
I don't recall the neighbors ever "hating" any of the previous occupants -- Tower Records, Virgin Megastore, or Best Buy. The first two at least were major attractions drawing people from all over the region.
 
Relocate the Trader Joes from the horrid basement space on Boylston Street to the former Virgin Megastore/BestBuy location. The direct bus/subway connection, frontage on Mass Ave, and much larger space would turn it into a bigger goldmine than the current miniature Boylston location is.
 
Best Buy was slightly contentious for the loading zone issue and their signage. And now that the residents of 360 are clued in to the development around them (as if the wide gaping holes of the pike weren't a clue????) they will likely be more a more vocal and unified group.
 
Multi-story grocery stores are a design challenge, as you need shopping cart escalators and those will really eat up floor space. I don't think it can work here. The floor plates aren't that big.
 
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Walgreens will be multi-floor in DTX but they may have larger floor plates, but maybe not. They advertise 16,000 square feet plates for the bank and they advertise 45,000 total square feet for Tower, so perhaps the same per floor? Lower ceilings at Tower, plus they'd have to redo all the entrances/exits - there's only one.

But, seeing what they do in NYC with adaptive re-use of existing buildings (there's a pharmacy / grocery store on every corner) it might work.

A mega-Walgreens would have prepared food and fruits/vegetables for sale, so lots more foot traffic than a Best Buy.
 
I'd guess that a Super Walgreens would put all of the groceries on one floor, so no need for shopping cart escalators there. Turning the entire ex-Tower Records into a grocery such as Market Basket or even Trader Joe's would necessitate them, though.
 
There are two passenger elevators and a freight, IIRC.
 
bbfen said:
There are two passenger elevators and a freight, IIRC.
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There's only 1 passenger elevator in the Tower/Best Buy space. It's dead-center in front of the main entrance. Piece of junk Dover.
 
Lurker said:
Relocate the Trader Joes from the horrid basement space on Boylston Street to the former Virgin Megastore/BestBuy location. The direct bus/subway connection, frontage on Mass Ave, and much larger space would turn it into a bigger goldmine than the current miniature Boylston location is.
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That's a good idea. I think an urban supermarket would be great for this location. I personally love Trader Joe's, but would think a Whole Foods, or Stop&Shop would be fine as well.
 
Elevators may be sufficient for going into and out of a single-story grocery store (such as Trader Joe's), but I doubt they can work well for going between floors of a multi-story grocer.
 
Do those French stores have shopping cart escalators, or just ordinary people escalators? Are their floor plates comparable to the Tower Records space?
 
aaaaaa said:
Paris and the banlieue have quite a few multi-story grocery stores, such as Monoprix. Most patrons use the escalators and then in the back they'd have a freight elevator or two.

The other thing that some chain grocers do over there is deliver large food items (cost varies with size of purchase, I believe. I never bought enough food to warrant delivery). That way, there is no issue if you are carless and it also serves to decrease congestion at the elevators.

I think this model could be applied quite well to this location/space.
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Many French people also buy food fresh from small stores/markets and don't do the big, weekly load-up that American suburbanites tend to gravitate toward. Probably means they don't need to haul big carts around as often when they go to the supermarket.

It's sort of unfortunate that we've brought the suburban supermarket model into American cities with re-urbanization, because it creates issues like this with floorplates, etc., and means getting new grocery stores into an area is a hassle. There are more nimble ways of providing food to urban populations.
 
Ron I'm confused by your shopping cart escalators in the middle of the Back Bay/Fenway area. Maybe it's time I spent oversees or just habit growing up but I grocery shop nearly every day, usually on my way home at night. Even the Pru Shaw's has ditched most of the "normal size" carriages in favor of the mini ones, or even large baskets that can roll.
 
By 'caddies' do you mean fold-up shopping carts owned by the customers (sometimes called 'granny carts' here)?
 
I love that the term "granny carts" caught on. I grew up in South Florida surrounded by hoards of senior citizens that shop with those things, so it's refreshing to know I'm not the only one that uses the term.
 
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